The Days and Nights of London Now--As Told by Those Who Love It, Hate It, Live It, Left It, and Long for It

About the Book

“Craig Taylor is the real deal: a peerless journalist and a beautiful craftsman.”—David Rakoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Fraud and Half Empty

“Londoners is a wonderful book—I wanted it to be twice as long.”—Diana Athill, New York Times bestselling author of Somewhere Towards the End

In Londoners, acclaimed journalist Craig Taylor paints readers an epic portrait of today’s London that is as rich and lively as the city itself. In the style of Studs Terkel (Working, Hard Times, The Good War) and Dave Isay (Listening Is an Act of Love), Londoners offers up the stories, the gripes, the memories, and the dreams of those in the great and vibrant British metropolis who “love it, hate it, live it, left it, and long for it,” from a West End rickshaw driver to a Soldier of the Guard at Buckingham Palace to a recovering heroin addict seeing Big Ben for the very first time. Published just in time for the 2012 London Olympic Games, Londoners is a glorious literary celebration of one of the world’s truly great cities.

Book Description

Five years in the making, Londoners is a fresh and compulsively readable view of one of the world's most fascinating cities—a vibrant narrative portrait of the London of our own time, featuring unforgettable stories told by the real people who make the city hum.

Acclaimed writer and editor Craig Taylor has spent years traversing every corner of the city, getting to know the most interesting Londoners, including the voice of the London Underground, a West End rickshaw driver, an East End nightclub doorperson, a mounted soldier of the Queen's Life Guard at Buckingham Palace, and a couple who fell in love at the Tower of London—and now live there. With candor and humor, this diverse cast—rich and poor, old and young, native and immigrant, men and women (and even a Sarah who used to be a George)—shares indelible tales that capture the city as never before.

Together, these voices paint a vivid, epic, and wholly original portrait of twenty-first-century London in all its breadth, from Notting Hill to Brixton, from Piccadilly Circus to Canary Wharf, from an airliner flying into London Heathrow Airport to Big Ben and Tower Bridge, and down to the deepest tunnels of the London Underground. Londoners is the autobiography of one of the world's greatest cities.

“Remarkable. . . . Essential. . . . Enlightening. . . . Londoners offers an impression of the city’s people, a way to understand their motives and fears and the simmering rush. It captures the combination of quiet desperation and boundless optimism required to live [there].” — San Francisco Chronicle

“Whether or not you know London, whether or not you love it, this book is for you. . . . A polyphonic hymn to the Big Smoke.” — Newsday

“A thrilling portrait of the city. . . . Enchanting. . . . I feel I almost learned more about Londoners from this book than from being a Londoner for more than four decades. . . . Too good to miss.” — Oona King, The Times (London)

“The best book about London in at least a decade. . . . Masterful. . . . A cracking and insightful read [that] will still be widely enjoyed 50 years from now. Treat yourself . . . you really are investing in a classic.” — Londonist.com

“Fans of Studs Terkel’s insightful oral histories will be delighted to discover a successor in Taylor. . . . His book brings London to life as it isever changing, ever eternal, ever unforgettable. A delight!” — Library Journal (starred review)

“Immensely enjoyable. . . . Reminded us of Studs Terkel’s best books.” — The Observer's Very Short List

“A remarkable new book that celebrates the city’s endless diversity. . . . Five stars.” — Time Out London

“An epic portrait in eighty voices that shows the city to be just [as] Dickensian as it has ever been.” — David Nicholls, bestselling author of One Day

“Londoners is a wonderful bookI wanted it to be twice as long.” — Diana Athill, bestselling author of Somewhere Towards the End

“Samuel Johnson said, ‘When you are tired of London, you’re tired of life.’ Craig Taylor is tired of neither London nor life, and this book is a gorgeous, utterly irresistibleeven addictiveode to both.” — David Shields, bestselling author of The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead and Reality Hunger

“Ambitious [and] creative. . . . A book to deepen your relationship with London and make you fall in - or out - of love with it all over again. . . . I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it.” — Lucy Worsley, author of If Walls Could Talk

“Craig Taylor is the real deal: a peerless journalist and a beautiful craftsman. He’d be a household name already if he wasn’t so modest. He’ll be one anyway in due course.” — David Rakoff, bestselling author of Fraud and Half Empty

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